Green Pancakes and the East End Gangster Cookery Show

Posted on May 12, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

There’s a woman from the US who has a cookery show. We think she’s a fake – acting as an Italian gangster’s wife and she cooks everything in character. Her name is Nadia G. and her show is called Bitchin’ Kitchen. Hopefully it’s all tongue in cheek – I’ve never really watched it – but it got Freya to thinking; maybe I should record some YouTube videos and cook in the style of Bob Hoskins or another East End Gangster. She’s often mocking my accent – being born in Ilford there’s still a bit of Cock-er-knee in there sometimes!

You could imagine it couldn’t you – ‘ere we ave some nice apples and pears with a raspberry veloute – blindin’.

She seems quite keen for me to do it. Not sure I could keep a straight face! We shall see.

Anyway – this recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi.

I like making this kind of pancake – and Ottolenghi has many variations on a style. I’ve made them with Sweet Potato and I think also with sweetcorn – and these with Spinach are equally nice.

The pancakes are quite small – and you can make lots of them – so you have enough to eat for now and snacks or seconds for later.

Essentially its just a pancake batter with spices – and then some cooked, squeezed and shredded spinach is added before frying them in olive oil. You’re supposed to use self raising flour but I didn’t have any – so I added 2 tablespoons of baking powder. You also fold in a ‘beaten to soft peaks egg white’ which made the pancakes quite fluffy.

I made the mistake of buying Natoora Spinach from Ocado. I usually just buy the baby spinach from Ocado, but Natoora do some amazing pomegranates, lemons and tomatoes – so I thought I’d give their spinach a go. Unfortunately, from a 400g bag of their spinach I only ended up with 200g after removing all the stalks. It was very stalky indeed !

I fried these two at a time in an omelette pan and ended up with 12 pancakes – perfect to stack in a pile of three – it doesn’t look like there is much spinach in them – but there is and you can certainly taste it.

That said – when I make them again I’ll probably add even more spinach to them.

You eat these with a chilli and lime butter – which you make by creaming some butter, adding lime, coriander and chilli and then resetting it in the fridge in a sausage of cling film.

These are really nice. We had three each before going out to the Goth Club ‘Electrowerx’ in London to listen to Ivardensphere. And another three each when we got home at 1 in the morning. Yummy!

Plenty – Yotam Ottolenghi

Posted on May 12, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

When I first conceived of the idea of stripping, despining, scanning and tossing all my cookery books, the first book I stripped was this one. It just happened to be on the top of a pile of books that didn’t quite find their way onto the bookshelf due to lack of space.

Heartbreaking as it is to cut up books with a craft knife (and a little dangerous I might add) there really isn’t an optimum way of laying out a book and photographing the pages. You’ll always get shadows, and then of course you’ve got to OCR the pages to recognise the words. It’s a pain.

When I scan the pages into my Mac, I use ReadIris Pro to recognise the pages and format them to PDF. They are then searchable, making it easy to find recipes based on ingredients. Genius or what !

Anyway back to the book.

I couldn’t have chosen a better book to start with. I don’t think there are many recipes in this book that you’d leave out. First time round (before Christmas) I made maybe 15 recipes from this book. I just wasn’t blogging then. This time round I have chosen 10+ dishes that are different from last time. Hopefully I have photographs from the lap of the book; if I do I’ll share them with you.

For those of you that have not heard of Yotam Ottolenghi, he is the master of all things Middle Eastern. He has has a couple of TV series and has featured on Australian Masterchef, The Taste, and often writes in the Guardian. He’s not a vegetarian but his recipes clearly reflect his preferences towards eating less meat and more vegetables and pulses.

He uses lots of traditional Middle Eastern ingredients like dried limes, freekeh, sumac, za’atar, moghrabieh and pomegranate molasses. The ingredients aren’t always readily available from supermarkets but I didn’t have to look too hard to find most of them online. I was also lucky enough to get an Ottolenghi cook box for Christmas from Freya’s mum with lots of ingredients in it. Which kind of made it easier.

Nothing in this book takes long to make, and he always precedes each recipe with a tiny tidbit about how the recipe came into his hands and why he likes it. It’s a very special book – it was a shame to cut it up.

This week – I’ll try and make:

Dates and Turkish Ewes Cheese
Figs with Basil, Goats Curd and Pomegranate Vinaigrette
Freekeh Pilaf
Barley and Pomegranate Salad
Avocado, Quinoa and Broad Bean Salad
Asparagus, Fennel and Beetroot with Verjus
Green Pancakes with Lime Butter
Garlic Soup with Harissa
Black Pepper Tofu
Sweet Potato Wedges with Lemongrass Creme Fraiche
Spicy Moroccan Salad
Sweet Potato Cakes
Brocollini and Sweet Sesame Salad
Brussel Sprouts and Tofu

I hope they are as good as they look!

Thai Corn and Mango Salad with Pomegranate Relish

Posted on May 7, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Tuesday nights are Rock’n’Roll dancing nights. Our usual pack drill is we just go dancing straight from work and skip dinner – and this was the plan yesterday. Instead we left work earlier than usual and went home. We didn’t have time to make any dinner so going home was essentially a waste of time.

That said – I did have to pay Freya’s mum for my new knife (well ‘cleaver’) that she picked up for me from Grand Designs at the weekend. The new ‘cleaver’ is a Hammer Stahl 7 inch Asian Cleaver. It’s beautifully weighted and looks stunning. I’ve been a hardcore advocate of Global knives for years. My friend Brad got me on to them some time ago and I didn’t think I’d ever stray – but the Hammer Stahl is very well balanced. And it was a bargain too at £85. Amazing how cheap you can pick up stuff at these shows. Hopefully I can pick up some more if Flint and Flame are at the Stonor Food Fayre this year.

I used the Asian Cleaver to julienne the mango and the spring onions in the final dish I’m making from Honestly Healthy for Life. It is very sharp – and a pleasure to use.

Anyway! enough of the knife idolising.

We got home from dancing at 11pm and Freya was hungry so I decided to make this last dish. It can be done in less than 30 minutes and we needed to wind down so I put it together and we ate it before going to bed. It’s pretty much carb free so I don’t think it’ll affect the waistline.

You simply boil some corn on the cob, then slice it into 2cm slices and sear it in oil on a hot plate. While you’re waiting you mix together some rocket, pomegranate seeds, mango, spring onions, bamboo shoots (which I omitted because mine weren’t fresh enough) and toss in a dressing of sunflower oil, lime juice, garlic, ginger and pomegranate molasses.

Very simple, very quick, very yummy.

I adapted this dish a little for work the next day and added julienned cucumber and some leftover spinach – and a few shavings of parmesan. It wasn’t quite as colourful – lacking the pomegranate seeds – but it was still an eye turner.

I’m still not the master of stripping down a mango. There has to be a better way than my clumsy way. Any suggestions?

Citrus Seaweed Salad

Posted on May 6, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

My penultimate dish from the shortlisted selection from Honestly Healthy for Life is this interestingly different dish.

Another incredibly basic dish that just requires a bit of preparation.

Segment a grapefruit and an orange, dice some cucumber, and toss together with Wakame seaweed, sesame seeds and an Asian dressing.

I bought my Wakame seaweed from souschef.co.uk but I think you can get it in most Chinese Supermarkets and I’ve since found it on Amazon.

Wakame supposedly has a fat burning protein, although I’m not sure how much of it you’d have to eat – and how regularly – before it made any difference to your waistline!

Wakame is usually bought dry and you rehydrate it by soaking it in water for 20 minutes or so. It’s very tasty and it smells lovely too.

I kept picking at this dish all day while I was working away on the boat yesterday. Freya wasn’t as keen as I think the Asian dressing was a bit too spicy.

It’s always tricky when someone says ‘one teaspoon of red chilli’. What do they mean. Dried chilli? Chilli flakes? Fresh Chilli? And then which chilli? Mild, hot, extra hot? It’s tricky to get chilli right in a dish other than to suck it and see – modify and try again. For me it was perfect but I’m a chilli head and will eat insanely hot chilli. Freya isn’t really one for anything other than a mild one.

If we make this again I’ll tone down the chilli. It was tasty enough without it.

Spinach Pearl Barley Risotto

Posted on May 6, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Seems like Monday was a day for all things green.

Green Love Green Smoothie
We painted the hull of our boat Green (we thought it was blue but seems it’s green)
We had Spinach Pearl Barley Risotto for dinner

That was a lot of spinach to have in one day – but at least we’ve not done our usual ‘throw a bag of spinach away because we bought too much’.

This is one of the best risottos I’ve ever eaten. And it isn’t even made with rice.

Don’t let the green put you off. Green stuff (as I mentioned for the smoothie) always looks bit weird – especially when it is as vibrant as this green!

The recipe is pretty basic – as are all the recipes in Honestly Healthy for Life. Saute some red onions and garlic, add the pearl barley, add some bouillon, cook like a risotto – and at the end add the pureed spinach, some lemon juice and zest. Dead easy.

I found it pretty hard to puree spinach leave in a Vitamix so I added some of the bouillon to get it going – after that it was all plain sailing.

The flavours in this dish are so simple and all come together beautifully. Spinach, garlic and lemon are always amazing in a salad – and they flavours transfer beautifully into this risotto.

This took less that 40 minutes to make and was awesome. This is a definite keeper and probably now means I’ll never throw a bag of spinach away ever again. I usually have all the other ingredients knocking about anyway – so this will probably end up being one of my emergency dinners.

The book suggests that you can substitute the spinach for beetroot. I imagine you could substitute any pureeable (I know that’s not a word) vegetable that has lots of flavour. Maybe I’ll try that later in the week ( I have a few raw beetroot in the fridge).

I seem to have been cooking from this books forever; but it’s only been 10 days. I’ve only one recipe left to try from my shortlist – which contains pomegranate and sweetcorn. After that I’ll move on to something else.

The coming week I think I’ll be cooking from Ottolenghi’s books!

Celeriac and Orange Soup

Posted on May 4, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

When you’re poorly, like I was, there’s nothing better to have to eat than soup. Chances are you’ll keep it down!

This soup is delicious. Not sure why its called Celeriac and Orange soup. I’d have called it Celeriac and Fennel Soup. The orange it really only zested over the top!

After roasting some fennel, you add it to chopped celeriac and cook until tender. Then you add some coconut milk and umeboshi plum puree. Then you puree the whole mixture in a blender until smooth.

The zesting of an orange over the top really makes this special. It really adds another layer of flavour to the soup.

If I’m honest I couldn’t really pick out the celeriac or the fennel in the soup. I could really taste the umeboshi plum puree – which is tart and tangy. Maybe we were a little heavy handed with it.

I’ve been eating this for two days now and really like it. It’s good hot or cold. It’s lovely and thick and I’ll definitely be making it again.

I’m looking forward to doing some cooking tomorrow and some proper blogging. I’ve missed it the last couple of days!

Roasted Tomato and Spinach Tart

Posted on May 4, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

This is one tasty tart, again taken from Honestly Healthy for Life.

We didn’t have a very nice pie dish so Freya improvised.

The crust of this tart is no more than some ground almonds, pumpkin and caraway seeds, herbs, seasoning and sunflower oil. It didn’t really maintain it’s integrity when you cut the tart. It looked pretty though. I think you could just as easily use the base as a ‘crumble’ topping and turn this into a pie – but I think it looks best this way.

The tart filling is tomatoes, spinach leaves and goats cheese. You’re supposed to quarter the tomatoes but we left them whole. The tomatoes could probably have done with some slow roasting the sweeten them up – but it was certainly yummy anyway.

It’s a delicious tart. I think I just have to work on making the crust more solid.

I didn’t get to eat it on the day it was made as I was poorly, but it tasted wonderful when I got to eat it the next day.

Raw Green Curry with Courgette Noodles

Posted on May 1, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Been wanting to make this one all week!

You really need a high speed blender to make this one. Otherwise you’re not going to be able to make the sauce smooth enough. I already tried with my Magimix and it was way too lumpy (something I also found with the Hot Chocolate). Magimix’s aren’t made for pureeing nuts! Fortunately Freya’s mum had a Vitamix I could borrow – so I went and did that.

To my delight she also had a birthday present for me. A voucher to eat at ‘Terre a Terre‘ in Brighton. Allegedly the best vegetarian restaurant in the UK. Freya has been wanting to eat there for quite some time – so I wonder where that idea came from !

You’ll also need a Spiraliser. Essentially a spiraliser makes spirals out of vegetables. I’ve got a cheap one that I bought from Amazon – which was apparently essential for making anything from the cookery book ‘Raw’ – which I have yet to make anything from.

I supposed you could julienne the courgettes but then they wouldn’t look like noodles. Obviously it would still taste the same!

Anyway – back to the recipe. You blitz cashews, coriander, fresh curry leaves, garlic, red chilli, lime juice, ginger and coconut milk (and some other herbs and spices) until you get a smooth paste. It goes a lovely avocado green colour.

You add this paste to your spiralised courgettes, beansprouts, mange tout, sugar snap peas, baby sweetcorn and sliced red peppers, mix it all together and serve it with a few cashews on top for decoration.

This dish is incredibly tasty. And crunchy. And fresh. And very very mild. Barely a curry at all.

You’d be convinced there were avocados in there too – but I think that’s just the mind tricking you because of the colour of the sauce.

I think if I were making this again I’d want to make it more spicy. This is certainly the mildest curry I’ve every eaten. Maybe more ginger or more red chilli would have done the trick.

It did feel like something was lacking. I just don’t know what it was. I loved it though. I’ve just been spoiled by the Honestly Healthy for Life book this week – from which this recipe is taken.

Raw Hemp Granola Bars

Posted on May 1, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

One thing Freya and I are very bad at is snacking. If we are going to the boat for a few hours we’ll always pop into a shop and come out with cookies, crisps and other bad things that we really shouldn’t be eating. More often than not we buy cheese and bread – even worse. I blame the supermarkets – they never have anything wholesome and healthy for you to grab. In fairness if we were to plan a bit better we’d always have something to take with us – but we never do.

Anyway – in light of me struggling to keep any food down at the moment – I thought I’d knock up some healthy bite sized snacks.

Honestly Healthy for Life has a number of snacks, the first one I’ve chosen is the Raw Hemp Granola Bars.

These are really easy to make. There’s no cooking (obviously – it says raw) – but you will need a blender to blitz everything together.

These bars contain coconut oil, rolled oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds and dates. Mine contained some figs too because I’d run out of dates and made the volume up with something similar. Annoyingly I needed the figs for another dish but that will now have to wait !

These taste amazing – a squidgier version of the Granola that I made earlier in the week. I’ll certainly be knocking up batches of these each week instead of being naughty with the Waitrose Chocolate Chip Cookies. That said – the recipe says it makes 12 – I’ve probably made 30. And they only keep for a week – so just bear in mind you’ll be eating a lot of them – or generously giving them away.

They might even do for our weekly team meetings at work – cake isn’t good for you guys !

Quinoa, Lemon Kale and Sesame Beetroot Salad

Posted on May 1, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

This is another offering from Honestly Healthy for Life. Freya made this one as I was feeling poorly and she insisted I sit down and rest while she did the cooking.

I really can’t go on about Quinoa enough. It’s so versatile and takes on the flavours of any liquid you cook it in. This recipe is no exception. Most of the dishes in this book cook the quinoa in bouillon.

We eat a lot of roasted beetroot – so I was glad to see a few beetroot dishes in the Honestly Healthy book.

The dish contains beetroot, kale, broccoli tips, leeks, lemons and onion – and of course quinoa.

Kale is amazingly dark and is apparently also a superfood – so I guess I’ll always be substituting it for greens or cabbage in future dishes. There’s a whole array of nutrients in kale – but I won’t bore you with that.

It’s supposed to have some bee pollen on it – but mine has mysteriously gone missing from my Amazon delivery – so it ended up being a vegan dish. It was also supposed to have mint but we seemed to have run out.

When you eat it there are an explosion of flavours and textures in your mouth. The kale and the broccoli is still crunchy, the beetroots are rich and there is a lovely citrus lemon running through it too. It also has a vinegary sour taste that comes from the mirin and the brown rice vinegar. It all comes together beautifully.

This dish is a definite keeper. I’ll be making this regularly. It keeps well too – I had some leftovers today (cold) and it was still as yummy as last night – although the kale and broccoli had gone a bit soft. You could probably keep the dressing separate to the dry ingredients and throw them together at the last minute if you want it for work lunch the next day.